Tropical storm to bring more heavy rain

Damage from last Thursday’s rains — with 2.5 inches falling within about an hour in most of central Grant County — did not affect just roads and streets. Several homes around the county suffered flood damage, and more potentially heavy rain may be on the way.

According to National Weather Service Meteorologist Joe Rogash, the area is in the path of what is now Hurricane Newton coming in from the Pacific Ocean, a storm predicted to affect both southwest New Mexico and southeast Arizona.

“Silver City is in a flash flood watch through Wednesday evening. We’re expecting a lot of rainfall over in Silver City,” he said. “There’s definitely going to be a lot of rain and a possibility of flooding, so people should stay alert.”

Last week’s record-breaking monsoon tore up streets downtown and in the county, and even damaged some homes.

Debaura James, a caretaker for a property on Cottage San Road, said the runoff got so bad that it actually burst open a back door of the home, and water and mud started streaming into the house.

“The house is sort of downhill and the back door faces that hillside. It pushed the back door open and flooded the place,” she said.

Since then she has been working to clean up, including digging mud out of the house, creating mounds as they shovel it out.

“I’m looking at some of the piles of mud that we’ve taken out of the house — there’s a four-foot-high pile in one area,” she said. “We’ve been out re-digging swales and trying to redirect water forces as a temporary measure in case it ever happens again.”

James, who has only lived in the area for about two years, told the Daily Press that she’s talked to neighbors who have lived here for more than 20 years and they had never seen anything this bad.

“Any place with a sheetrock wall, we’re expecting those will have to be pulled out,” she said.

National Weather Service staffers encouraged residents to be aware and careful if projected storms materialize.